Hacker Rails Against New Worm

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Hacker Rails Against New Worm

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A computer hacker from Australia has the sneaking suspicion that someone copied key aspects of a nondestructive worm he circulated last week, and turned it into the "NewLove" virus that panicked, among others, the FBI and Janet Reno.

But even if this week's virus scare didn't use the source of his "ILOVEYOUTOO" worm, "Valiant" thinks the real culprits are naive, callow computer users who don't know enough not to open unsolicited email attachments.

Also earning villain points from Valiant are media outlets that wildly jump on any information that contains the word "virus."

"Valiant," the founder of Australian hacker group Halcon, sent his harmless "ILOVEYOUTOO" worm code to Wired last week as a demonstration of how to script a variant of a virus.

He said "NewLove" bears a "remarkable resemblance" to his own worm.

Valiant's virus had no "payload," so it was unable to damage computer systems. Valiant said he released it only to track the potential damage that might be caused by another worm outbreak, after people had been warned not to open attachments in the wake of the "Love Bug" worm.

He notes that .vbs coding, the method used in the latest rash of worm attacks, is "very open source" and it's easy to modify a benign script into one that delivers a nasty bug.

"I've never written a malicious virus; however, I have written up a lot of small virii in the early hours of the morning simply to trace how many stupid users have default settings of IRC clients, email clients, and other such features of standard Microsoft operating systems," he wrote in an email.

Valiant believes that "NewLove" is "just another big slap in the face to the moron computer users out there."

He thinks that the recent outbreak of viruses is directly related to the "sickening amount" of attention viruses are getting in the media, and the "fact that every user out there likes to think they're computer geniuses, therefore the field of computer professionals has dwindled and now we have an IT industry run by MS weenies with not a clue about any other platform."

He points to his own business, Raptor Web Services as an example of non-pros stepping on toes, saying that "school kids" can use FrontPage and pose as professionals.

"Then these unprofessionals ... jump in and attempt to spread the FUD (Fear, Uncertainly, Despair) that is behind most IT decisions these days."

Releasing a malicious virus is a "relatively lame" thing to do, Valiant said.

"It's the fastest way to get the world's attention to a degree that evidence will be made available to the people who can put you away for a long time. Damaging (other people's computers) gets you locked in a cell with a 300-pound guy named Mary."